Steve Hossack

Doncaster Knights boss Clive Griffiths did not look to make excuses when reflecting on the club’s 28-13 Championship play-off final first leg defeat.

Knights will face an uphill task to reach the Aviva Premiership when they start 15 points behind Bristol at a sold out Ashton Gate on Wednesday.

And Griffiths admitted his side’s performance at Castle Park left him disappointed.

“You can’t blame the weather because you have to be able to adapt to the conditions,” said the Welshman.

“We didn’t play as well as well as we normally play because we continually dropped the ball which made it hard for ourselves.

“A typical example of that was after we’d gone 10-3 up we dropped the ball from the restart and as a consequence we spent ten minutes defending in our half using up needless energy and that was the tale of the game.

“I’m extremely disappointed (in how we played) and we didn’t attack in the same manner and effectiveness as we’ve done all season. Some of that was due to pressure of big collisions coming in but most of the mistakes were down to poor execution on our part.

“We came in 13-11 up at half time and very much in the game, but we made a couple of errors in defence, people not being where they were supposed to be in the structures we have in place and it cost us two tries.

“It was a tough day at the office in the second half and we didn’t cause them many problems in attack until late in the game when we went close.

“It’s just a pity that we couldn’t turn that pressure into points as it would have obviously improved our prospects of winning the tie had we done so.”